Mount Evelyn DX Report

THE TILTED TERMINATED FOLDED DIPOLE A PRACTICAL BUILDING GUIDE The following little article was written in 2003 (I think!).  I experimented with the Tilted Terminated Folded Dipole (T2FD). This antenna ended being up in the backyard for quite a while before it was finally taken down. This is not an easy antenna to construct and erect, especially because of its size when cut for the lower shortwave frequencies. However, the exercise was worthwhile and the device does work well in a low noise environment. This article, which first appeared in the Electronic DX Press many years ago, contains a number of photos.....they say that a picture is worth a 1000 words! There has been some editing to update web links. Hope you enjoy it.   P.S. Bear in mind this was a project completed some 17 years ago. There are several things in the construction that I'd probably do differently these days - call it hindsight and experience! Please excuse the low  quality of the images....

FROM THE LOG BOOK February 25, 2015 Reception conditions at Mount Evelyn has been difficult during the past week. Several days with high local thunderstorm activity kept me off air. And when it wasn't stormy here, it was in other parts of Australia, resulting in high atmospheric noise on the bands. However, things have improved in the past 48 hours, and the results of my listening are listed below. There are two audio clips - both from Sudan. Hopefully, you can find something of interest to you! 4930   BOTSWANA. VOA - Moepeng Hill. Fabulous signal at 2034 with a wonderful Afro music program, entertaining listening on Feb 23. 4940   SAO TOMÉ. VOA - Pinheira . s/on 2030 with the 30-min news in Hausa, poor signal on Feb 23. Nowhere near the strength it used to regularly maintain in "the old days", and certainly much weaker than the Botswana outlet on 4930 kHz. 4949.72   ANGOLA. R. Nacional de Angola - Mulenvos. Canal A service in Por...

HALLICRAFTERS AT THE LIGHTHOUSE (Click on each photograph for an enlarged view) During my road trip through New South Wales and Queensland last October and November, I visited a tiny coastal village called Seal Rocks, on the mid-north coast of NSW. Aside from the wonderful views, surf and sun, a visit to Seal Rocks is not complete without checking out the Sugarloaf Point Light , also known as the Seal Rocks Lighthouse . This is a really beautiful part of the world and it was my second visit to the area. I have included here photographs of both the lighthouse and the surrounding bay.  There's a small wooden garage on the property that acts as a sort of museum with bits and pieces of lighthouse memorabilia stored in a fairly random fashion. One of the items caught my attention immediately! It was a Hallicrafters marine radio from World War 2.   I'm no expert on vintage radios, and we don't often see Hallicrafters in Australia. However, I've done a lit...

NEW STATION:  RADIO RISALA INTERNATIONAL Thanks to tip from Ludo Maes via Mauno Ritola in the WRTH Facebook page......... 15165 kHz, Radio Risala International - site unknown (perhaps Issoudun??).  This new SW station started on Feb 20 at 1830 UTC, with numerous IDs as "Radio Risala". I can't confirm this, but the language used sounded like Oromo (a.k.a. Afaan Oromo) which is spoken largely in Ethiopia. The programming featured mainly talk with occasional excerpts of instrumental music. This appears to be a religious group, Muslim-based faith. From 1853, there was a long chant in call and response style. Suddenly off at 1857 in the middle of the chant, so we didn't hear a proper sign off announcement. The signal strength was poor here at Mount Evelyn. The band was not in very good shape this morning. I tried recording it but the quality just wasn't good enough to include here. However..... The station has a Facebook page :   https://www.facebook....

Cyclones On The Loose Over the past two days, tropical cyclones (a.k.a. typhoons or hurricanes in other parts of the world) have approached the Australian coast in two separate places at the one time. But...it's THAT time of year for such meteorological events here in OZ. The one on the eastern coast is hitting the populated coastal regions as I type this post. The cyclone in the north of the country is also building significantly. So far this summer, cyclones have not bothered us - our cyclone season should have begun several months ago. The sudden appearance of these two events indicates that the waters around the tropical coasts are appreciably warmer at this time of the year - up to 26˚C in some areas. Therefore, intense low pressures can form rapidly and without much warning. You can expect to hear the ABC stations on the tropical bands devoting their programming to cyclone reporting, emergency plans and news updates. Listen out for the following stations: 2325  VL8T ...

The  Waratah  flower is the state emblem of New South Wales. I took this photo last year while driving through the bush in the famous Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. FROM THE LOG BOOK February 14, 2015 Hi Fellow DXers! There's been lots of great feedback to Michael Stevenson's guest post on the Wellbrook antenna . And the last post to the MEDXR is about the World Christian Broadcasting's new transmitters at Mahajanga, Madagascar . If you haven't done so already, check out these two posts. I have been active on the bands over the last few days and there are plenty of interesting stations to hear. I've taken the best of my log book notes and posted them here for you. I hope there's something of interest that you could try for this weekend! Good luck! TALKING POINTS 5020   SOLOMON ISLANDS. SIBC - Honiara. After days of weak or no signal on the old 5019.9 kHz outlet using what sounded like the old transmitter, SIBC was back on air here with a st...

Entrance to the Mahajanga transmitting site. NEW AFRICAN SITE DRAWS CLOSER TO START World Christian Broadcasting (WCB) has been given permission to put their new station on air in Madagascar - a sister station to their Alaskan KNLS transmitters. The station is to be known as Madagascar World Voice (MWV). This has been in the planning stages for some years now and building commenced in 2006. But local political instability and coup have played a large role in the delay of the realisation of this project. Finally, recent elections have given WCB an opportunity to work with the Government in bringing its dream to fruition. The transmitting facility is stationed at Mahajanga, Madagascar. It is on the western side of the island, more than seven hours and over 550 km away from the long established Talata-Volonondry site on the eastern side. As some DXers will recognise, KNLS has often been a difficult station to hear in many parts of the globe. But, we know from the past that...